Branding a "Tip Jar"

One of the things a lot of bloggers and podcasters do is put a "tip jar" on their site, where folks can contribute money through PayPal or the Amazon Honor system. This is the first example of one being "branded" with the donation pegged to a particular monetary scale -- in this case, Chais: Buy Dave A Cup of Chai? Wow! Dave says: "Thanks!"

The first thing that struck me was that it was like Heifer.org saying they were sending chickens to Afgahnistan, and then having to explain to dumb people that they weren't really cramming a bunch of baby chicks in cargo containers and shipping them across the ocean... they were sending money. (Details online; enjoy!)

The other thing I thought of as I looked at Dave's site again: I wonder if he partnered up with Starbucks to get a kick-back for the free advertising?

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